Sexual behavior of drug-users: is it different?

Background: Across the world, drug-users (DU) have been shown to be at greater risk of contracting and transmitting sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infection. However, in the metropolitan cities of India, where drug-use patterns may uniquely vary between injection and noninjection, depending on drug availability, little is known about the risk behavior of drug-users.

Objective: The objective of the study was to find out whether drug-users are more likely to practice high-risk sexual behavior compared to non-drug users.

Methods: The sexual behavior of 70 drug-users, selected by snowball sampling, was compared with 128 age- and economic status-matched controls (non-drug-users), randomly selected from the same community.

Results: Seventy-eight percent sexually active drug-users and 43% sexually active non-drug-users had multiple sex partners (P < 0.02). The average number of sex partners was significantly higher among the drug-users (P = 0.05). Anal intercourse was practiced by 25.7% drug-users and 8.6% non-drug-users (OR = 3.7; P < 0.01). The drug-users were 6.7 times more likely to visit commercial sex workers (P < 0.0001). Sexually transmitted disease prevalence was higher among the drug-users (P < 0.003).

Conclusions: Notwithstanding the small sample size, this study shows that drug-users practice high-risk sexual behavior more frequently. Interventions, in the form of awareness generation and prevention education programs, are required in order to reduce risk of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV transmission among drug-users.